[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse podcast with Paul Solentrop of Wichita State University strategic communications. Thanks for listening. We appreciate your time. Our guest today is Joseph Holthuizen. He is a red shirt senior from Wichita. He runs track for Wichita State. Joseph attended Bishop Carroll Catholic High School. He won football and team track state titles, plus two individual titles in the hurdles with the Golden Eagles. At Wichita State. Joseph earned second team indoor all american honors in the 60 meters hurdles. In 2021, he ranked second on WSU's career list in that event with a time of 7.79 seconds. He is also 6th on Wichita State's top ten and the 110 hurdles. Joseph as a good student, as we would expect from a school like Bishop Carroll, he is a regular on the AAC Academic all conference list and the eighties honor roll. The ACC championships are coming up later this week in San Antonio. Joseph Frank's first in the conference in the 110 hurdles with a time of 13.84 seconds. Joseph so let's go back to your time at Bishop Carroll. John Wise has said you were not super highly recruited. Tell us about choosing track and ending up at Wichita State.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, so out of high school, I had gotten a few different schools reaching out to me, and they were smaller schools.
I thought that I was high level enough that I should be getting some d one offers.
But after a while, I decided that I was going to go to Wichita State regardless of if I got a scholarship or not for tracking.
Finally, I think it was about late June, me and coach Bolt talked about me being able to get on the team, and I accepted it, and the rest is history.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: So this is after your senior year, so you graduated, so this was kind of a late developing.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think it was around. I think I came on a small visit before the senior track season, and then they told me, well, if you hit this time and this time in both hurdle events, then we'll offer you. And I did that. So they gave me a little something, and I took it and ran with it.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Why track?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: I had decided junior year, so junior year, football.
I love football. I played football for ten years. But football, no one can. In track, no one can tell you that someone else is better than you just based off opinions. Track is all about the time you run. And so no one can say, oh, this person's better than this person, or this person better than this person.
It's set in stone. There's a time for it. And junior year, I had people starting over me just because they were a senior in football. And so I decided that well, track's going well. Let's do track. And so I just continued to work at the hurdles and I did the four X one, we scored third, and the four X one, it stayed as well, and it ended up being track is what I love most.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Why the hurdles? That's such an interesting event. I guess it's kind of. I always ask players who are catchers in baseball and softball, why do you want to sit back there and take all that abuse? I guess hurdles is a little similar. You are sprinting, but you're also jumping and banging your knees and collisions and things like that. Why did the hurdles appeal to you?
[00:03:55] Speaker B: It's funny, you have to go all the way back to 6th grade for that story. So I started hurdles in 6th grade. I was actually, my grandma lives on a farm and she's got this big forest next to her house, and we always used to play in that forest. Well, one time I was just running through the forest, jumping over all these logs and sticks, and I tried to get from one end to the other. It was about an acre of forest, and I realized I was like, well, I'm doing track this year, maybe I should try hurdles. And so I did. And the first meet went really well, and the next meet, the next meet just kept getting better. And so I ended up falling in love with him in 6th grade.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Okay, so you come from a football family. Your father played in college. You have a younger brother, Matthew. He plays at Southwestern College.
Your younger brother Luke also plays football, played football at Carroll. He'll run track here at Wichita State.
A football player help you in track or specifically in the hurdles?
[00:04:57] Speaker B: It's interesting. In high school, I played football, and then track season comes after football, and so I would see a lot of football players running the hurdles.
I don't know why that is. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe there was just as many people in the sprints that did football as well. But I would say that with the calf strength and the bursts of speed that you need after each hurdle, because basically after each hurdle, you're trying to speed up again. I would say that football helped a little bit, and I would say that being able to do more lifting during the football season and being able to focus on running during the track season helped as well.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: So, family of five brothers in the Holthusen household, how did that shape your life growing up in that kind of a family environment?
[00:05:52] Speaker B: We played a lot of sports in and outside the house.
We just. We would beat each other up.
Not in a bad way. We'd play football outside one on one. We'd play two v two.
We would find all these fun games that. That were active to play and great, loving family.
And all of us playing sports was awesome. You know, I would do track and football, and then the next would do track and football, and we all ended up being kind of a track and football family, a few of us. Basketball. I played basketball for a couple years in 7th and 8th grade, but I'm not any good at basketball.
Matthew went to southwestern, was probably better at basketball than me, and it was awesome.
My dad also ran track in high school, and so there's an old picture of him running that he showed me later. His school was black and yellow, and there's a picture of me, and there's a picture of him side by side in the starting blocks. And so just growing up in a sports family and being around football, if you don't love it, you learn to love it, I guess.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: So what is the best family story about a board game gone wrong or someone stomping off the basketball court angry at the brothers? What's the best competitive spirit story from you and your brothers?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Oh, man.
Competitive spirit. I mean, some of this we would make up. So we got a trampoline. It was my brother's birthday, and we used that trampoline to death. I mean, we had to replace multiple parts in that trampoline multiple times because we were always beating each other up on that thing. We would just make up random games just because we were all so competitive. One of those games was, like, football, soccer, and we'd try to, like, kick the football into a net. We'd be hitting each other just like you would in football without pads. And there was people falling through that trampoline and people falling off the trampoline. I'd say that that's one of the best competitive rough housing stories I've got, brothers.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: There will be a lot of rough housing. That's good stuff. So Wichita State recently had its Wheaties award, which recognizes things on the field or on the court, but also academics, all those kind of things. Community service. So you and Addison Barnard, who plays softball at Wichita State, you both won the heart of a Shocker award that is given to someone who excels in every area of student athlete life while demonstrating character and integrity. So you were on a podcast called real conversations that I listened to a little bit of. You talked about the importance of caring about something and really leaving a legacy.
What is your legacy at Wichita State? What would you want people to think about when they think about your time here.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: I hope that I was able to inspire some people while I was here.
There's been many. I mean, there was a season and a half where I was injured, and it was hard for me to run. And I hope that now being able to come back for the 6th year and winning a conference championship last year, I hope that people see that after you're hurt, you can always come back and do great things.
It's been difficult.
There's been nothing given to me in track and field, and I hope that people are able to see what I've done and be inspired to come back from whatever struggles they've gone through during their time, any sport.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: So you mentioned the foot injury took a chunk out of your track career. 2021, 2022. You had also been here during COVID in 2020.
What kept you going? How do you work your way through those obstacles?
[00:10:10] Speaker B: I don't know how I did it.
COVID was a bit crazy.
Starting at COVID, we had our outdoor taken from us. I remembered going to the collegiate track just to work out. They ended up kicking us off there after a few months telling us we couldn't practice there anymore, I went. I drove all the way to Andover to continue practicing. They've got this open track there. I mean, I think it's a middle school track. It's just this open field with track in it. I would do stuff at home. I do plyometrics outside, yoga in my basement.
Moving on to with my foot injury, I ended up going to conference outdoor. So I got plantar fasciitis. I think it was plantar fasciitis. After nationals, after I went to the NCAA meet, and I ended up running at South Florida because I thought that we might have a chance to win a team title.
And we didn't end up winning. I ended up getting six. Felt like I broke my foot, but you keep moving. And I.
The same thing next year. I red shirted when we won conference out here at Wichita State. And it was difficult. It was difficult because I was hurting real bad. It hurt to run, it hurt to walk, and that I was having knee problems then. But I guess seeing those successes from other people and knowing that you've had successes before, you want to continue your own success. And so that drive to have that personal success was just strong enough to keep me going.
A lot of the friendships, people I lived with, family and coaches were also supportive that it made it a bit easier.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Anybody in particular? A teammate who when, you know, when you were really down, that really helped get you through the rehab and all of those things.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: I mean, my family in general is always very supportive.
Love my family.
They come to all the meets out here when we've got a meet here at home, and the people I lived with, every time I've lived with them have always been supportive.
During COVID I lived with a group of guys. We made the best of it. We did what we could and we had fun.
We kept our friendships during that time because no one ended up going back home. We all ended up staying in the house.
Coach Wise also is just very supportive. I mean, he's a good motivator. You go into his office and you talk about what you're struggling with, and he'll just sit there and listen and he knows what to say, how to say it, how to motivate you, and he's been a great coach.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: So you mentioned 2022, when the Shockers won the AAC outdoor title. Big deal. Defeating a really powerful Houston team. Then you came back in 2023, you contributed, scored 6.25 points in that meet. How rewarding was it to be really a part of things in that way in last spring?
[00:13:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Oh, it was awesome.
I think I was projected fifth or 6th, and I came out in fourth, and I was really happy about that. I would have loved the medal, of course, but I guess we're trying to save that for this year, so it was awesome.
I'm the type of guy who goes to each meet and I'll score out the meat based off the injuries, and I'll see what team's doing the best after day one, after day two. And it was funny, after day two, I kind of sat there and I did the scoring and I'm like, ah, well, yeah, we're not winning this. Well, we come back the next day and a few events go right, triple jump and the five k. And I remember before the five k, I was sitting there and I was talking to Adam Moore and I'm like, can these guys score ten points? Because I knew in my head, like, they scored ten. We only need fourth in the four x one, which was very possible with our guys. And he's like, well, if, you know, if they have a really good race, yeah. And I'm like, bet we go and we watch it. And it was emotional. It was awesome to be part of that championship.
The high lasted all summer, even into the, you know, that's the type of stuff that continues to motivate you as well. You go into summer workouts thinking, oh, let's, you know, we just won. Like, let's keep it rolling.
Being able to contribute last year was amazing.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: So many people would think of track as an individual sport, and certainly there's a lot to that. Wichita State coaches seem to do a really good job of emphasizing that team aspect, and they put everything into the conference championship meets.
How do they do that? How do they go about building that importance of being a team and winning team titles?
They.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: You know, it is interesting if you go to, like, an NCAA meet, there's this whole mix of teams, but most of those teams only have one or two people with us. They emphasize throughout the whole year that this is a team sport. A lot of programs will have their men and women separate. You know, they don't practice together at all.
We're always in team meetings, girls and guys.
The team meetings aren't just the throwers. They aren't just the distance runners. Everyone's there all at once, and it's just.
I love it because in high school, you know, it was the same thing with Bishop Carroll. It's not just individual. It becomes a team sport. Now, you score individually, but being able to have that support of every teammate and motivate everyone and be there for everyone and have this great team chemistry and bond with everyone, that really makes track and field even more that exciting and fun.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: So the hurdles group is traditionally strong at Wichita State. Why has Wichita State been fortunate in that event?
[00:16:50] Speaker B: I would say that it's because of the way we practice and push each other. The hurdles are interesting.
It's hard to go a long time without hurdling and go to a meet and be really good. But if you go to practice and you compete against people in practice over the hurdles, that's the best kind of practice you're going to get, is competition. And so all the time in practice, we're competing against each other.
You know, we've got time in between each hurdle run to talk and joke around. So the bond between all the hurdlers is good and just the growth of everyone. I mean, even this year, Jahliel Montgomery and Josh Parrish have just excelled greatly. And with that, they've been able to push me, and I've been able to push them.
[00:17:56] Speaker D: Hi, this is Rick Newma, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode, I sit down with different guests from Shocker nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Josh Parrish is an excellent young hurdler. He will enter the conference, meet highly ranked fourth in the 110 hurdles, fifth in the 400 hurdles. How do you help a young hurdler navigate college athletics?
[00:18:39] Speaker B: I'll tell you what, he's done a pretty good job navigating it.
He has not only excelled in the hurdles, but he's excelled in long jump as well. He's on the four x one team.
I would say that's probably a better question for both the twins, Josh and Jason, how they've been able to navigate college together.
They might not like me saying this, but they know it. They came in a little shy, and I was the same way, though, coming in a little bit shy, and they've really opened up. And just the more I see them open up, the more I see them perform better. And I see that a lot in track and field is if you can get comfortable with the team and comfortable with the coaches and the atmosphere, the faster you excel and the better you get. And those guys have done a great job.
Not as much because of me.
I would say that on their own terms, they've just worked really, really hard. And with that, they've pushed me, and I've loved being able to be teammates with them for a year and also.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Former high school football players and came from a big family of competitive brothers, both Josh and Jason. They're twins. They're having really strong freshman years for Wichita State. So you've been an athlete at Wichita State since the 2018 to 19 school year. How's being part of a track and field team, how's it changed in those. That time?
[00:20:15] Speaker B: It's changed. It's changed a lot.
Just about every year, the dynamic of the team will change, whether it's good or bad or both.
And it's been interesting even just going from when we used to reside under Cessna Stadium to this new building. Now we took, like, I think we took a show of hands of how many people had been under Cessna Stadium when we had team meetings, and it was three or four. And so being in that last group of people who know what it's like to be under there and then have these great facilities now is interesting.
I wish that I could go under and show all the freshmen what we used to have, and it was great. I loved it. It was nostalgic, but what they're blessed with nowadays and how awesome it is, but the dynamic of the team, I mean, just each year, I mean, freshman year to now, partially because of my own growth, but partially because of the way the coaches have conducted, the team, has continued to get better every year. Just everyone and their attitude and the work ethic.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: When did you walk in the locker room and the generation gap became obvious that you looked around and said, these kids around here are a lot younger than I am.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Yep. That started last year when people started calling me old man.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
And especially with the COVID year, we've had several of those stories going on. Your brother Luke will come to Wichita State. I guess that's one of the highest compliments you can pay a coaching staff is that you would say, this is the kind of place I would recommend. My brother would come. Tell us about Luke as a travel track athlete.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, man. Well, he just worked so hard.
He ended up. He tore his ACL during football this year, and he did all the recovery necessary and ended up coming back a month early.
And so he had signed a couple months after he tore his ACL, and he is very grateful to be able to come here. But even just this year as an athlete, he tore his ACL. He waited, I think, two or three meets to come back and run the high hurdles. And comparing him now versus last year, even after a horrible injury, he is running better times at this point in the season than he was at last point, at last season, at this time. So his work ethic is just amazing.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: So you have six years of experience. What advice would you give to a high school athlete who is starting to ponder, where am I going? Where am I going to do run track? What's your advice for choosing a college?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say the first thing you should do is just start emailing coaches.
I emailed a few coaches.
I like to tell a story. I emailed k state and they replied within a couple hours. Just a one line email saying no.
And I also like to say that I never lost to a k state hurtle earn my entire time here, but I use that as motivation.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: Yes. To have that letter taped up next to you.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: I know deleted the email, unfortunately, but I do remember it. And email. All these schools, however many nos you get are just gonna be motivation to continue to go, and you're gonna get a yes somewhere. If you really want to run and if you love your family and you can stay close, I recommend it. My family's been awesome to be around. I go home almost every Sunday just to visit them. And if you can't do that and you still love track, you'll find your way back home anyway.
And I didn't think I would ever do engineering. So whatever you think you're going to do, unless you're going medical or something, I'd say if you love track and field, you'll find a degree at that college that you want to do, because I never thought I'd do engineering, and I ended up doing even more than that, got an MBA along with it.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: So that's been quite a challenging academic road. Time management. How do you balance everything?
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Well, this past year hasn't been too bad.
Most of my classes have been online, so that helped. But before that, I always have an agenda on me that helps a lot. Write down every assignment you got to do you.
A couple years ago, three years ago, with engineering, sometimes I had to miss some practices because of classes.
You end up getting in this routine, just like you did in high school, where it ends up working out so you don't miss an assignment. You can usually pass a class.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: You published a board game called Survival.
Describe survival for us.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got. I've got. So, I love making board games. Even when I was younger in middle school, I kind of liked making board games. Well, I finally sat down one day, and I decided, well, I'm gonna make a. I'm gonna finish a board game. I'd like to publish it. I think it'd be fun. So, about a year later, I finalized the game. And I remember, you know, even on track trips, I'd bring my laptop and just kind of work on it.
A year later, I published it on my Instagram page on board games. And it's a survival based game where you are on an island and you have to survive longer than other players.
So it's an elimination strategy board game.
You know, I've played it with my cousin. We played it a lot. He ended up really liking it. Some other people have played it, and they liked it. So it's on thegamecrafter.com, and I've had a few people buy it. So with that, too, I've got another card game that I made. It's called barbell. I was thinking, well, what can I do that pertains to physical activity? I love sports. So I made a card game where you get points for different weights on the bar, and I ended up publishing that one as well, so. And both of those are, if you go to my instagram, I'd have a link there that takes you to the page where all my board game stuff is.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Okay, hit people with your instagram handle. How do they find you on Instagram?
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's in nothing special. Just Joseph Holthusen. No space, no underscore Holthusen.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: H o l t h u s e n.
Tell us about your warm up routine before the hurdles. Do you have music? Are you thinking about something in particular? How do you get ready for that moment when you're bursting out of the blocks?
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's changed over the years, but this year, recently, I've noticed that my energy levels, as far as you know, I'm getting a bit old, but being out in the sun and everything, I try to stay relaxed. I try to stay out of the sun as much as I can.
I try not to do too many hurdles because I found that the best races come from being relaxed and from being confident. It doesn't matter how many hurdles you do before the race, if you do zero hurdles before the race, as long as you're confident and you've practiced, and I've done over 10,000 hurdles in my life, you know what to do when you get in the blocks. And so warm up routine now is at most about 45 minutes.
I get out there and I do kind of a general warm up, and I move into some more sprinting technique work and then put on the spikes for a few minutes and then take them off and then maybe put on spikes and do a couple hurdles before I get in the blocks and run. So it changed from having an hour and a half warm up to 45 minutes. And I've seen, I seem to have more energy when I keep my warm up short. My warmup's still good, it still gets me loosened up, and I'm ready to run. I'm not going to tear something, but 45 minutes, maybe 50, and then I get in the box. And as long as you're confident you'll.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: Run a good race, we'll wrap it up with your favorite diversion. When you're on the road, on a bus or a plane, what are you listening to? Do you have a tv show, a book? What would you recommend that people check out?
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Well, I'd say if I'm on the bus with the teammates, I'm usually a big talker.
I usually like talking to people a lot. I play some phone games. We've been playing phone games, like among us and photo roulette on the bus with teammates, and then on the plane, I sleep.
I get knocked out on the plane. I bring a pillow and I fall asleep on the plane. I don't like planes, so it was exciting the first and second time I went on a plane. Now I don't like it anymore. So when I'm in the car just by myself, usually I'm listening to country or some fitness podcasts.
If I'm not with someone else and I'm just by myself. Usually it's, it's music or if I've got a podcast that my fiance's recommended, I might listen to that. So it just varies, depends on the trip and all that.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Okay. Joseph Holthuizen. He is a hurdler sprinter at Wichita State. The shockers will be competing in the American Athletic Conference championships in San Antonio. Joseph, thank you very much for your time.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast, courtesy of Wichita State University strategic communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
[email protected]. Dot Malcolm out near the timeline, left side of the Florida, Baker Ron works deeper to the wing, fires a three.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Good.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: Ron Baker with his third three point field goal of the game in Wichita State, goes ahead by four.
